Rather than go on location and make a realistic film about drug addiction in the Windy City, contrarian director Otto Preminger decided to go the opposite way and make his movie appear as artificial as possible, thus flying in the face of the fashion set by men like Kazan, Huston and Zinnemann, who were making their pictures all over the world. Nelson Algren, on whose novel the movie is based, went on record as despising it. What, one wonders, was Preminger up to, and why did he do the movie this way?
The sets in the film are so minimal as to suggest a Mr. Magoo cartoon. Louie, the drug pusher, is attired as to resemble the sort of gangster the artists at Mad magazine used to draw. Arnold Stang, wonderful comedian that he was, seems out of place in a serious picture like this, and his very appearance, topped off by an exaggerated and over-sized baseball cap, elicits laughter. Robert Strauss, another actor best known for humorous roles, is likewise out of place, as his large, heavily jowled face and Runyonesque delivery of lines seems more appropriate to a Jerry Lewis movie. Against all this, stars Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker have to work overtime to just keep the viewer from snickering. Sinatra is jittery and manic throughout, suggesting a man ill at ease with himself, hence wholly appropriate for the role of a drug addict. Miss Novak, plant-like and sublimely deadpan, is sympathetic and seems a product of the artfully dingy slums she graces in the film. Parker is pure Hollywood and very hard-working as the crippled and crafty Zosch. She is never convincing, but then neither is the film.
I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone interested in a realistic depiction of the lives of drug addicts in America. The Caligari sets alone make it unbelievable. Preminger may have been aiming for a dream effect, as the cardboard backgrounds give the proceedings the surreal feeling of a nightmare operetta, perhaps harking back to Preminger's early days in Vienna.
The sets in the film are so minimal as to suggest a Mr. Magoo cartoon. Louie, the drug pusher, is attired as to resemble the sort of gangster the artists at Mad magazine used to draw. Arnold Stang, wonderful comedian that he was, seems out of place in a serious picture like this, and his very appearance, topped off by an exaggerated and over-sized baseball cap, elicits laughter. Robert Strauss, another actor best known for humorous roles, is likewise out of place, as his large, heavily jowled face and Runyonesque delivery of lines seems more appropriate to a Jerry Lewis movie. Against all this, stars Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker have to work overtime to just keep the viewer from snickering. Sinatra is jittery and manic throughout, suggesting a man ill at ease with himself, hence wholly appropriate for the role of a drug addict. Miss Novak, plant-like and sublimely deadpan, is sympathetic and seems a product of the artfully dingy slums she graces in the film. Parker is pure Hollywood and very hard-working as the crippled and crafty Zosch. She is never convincing, but then neither is the film.
I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone interested in a realistic depiction of the lives of drug addicts in America. The Caligari sets alone make it unbelievable. Preminger may have been aiming for a dream effect, as the cardboard backgrounds give the proceedings the surreal feeling of a nightmare operetta, perhaps harking back to Preminger's early days in Vienna.